Words of wisdom from a franchisor:
Proforma’s co-CEO Greg Muzzillo said “the filing will improve Norwood’s balance sheet immediately”. Well, no sh** sherlock! Bankruptcy is a great vehicle to screw your creditors! (Greg gets a 2-3% kickback on every item a franchisee buys from Norwood.) Why not screw them all the way just like you do your franchisees, Greg (and your wife too)! After all, you learned from the best – Mr. DeLuca. And your little whipping boy Brian Smith can help you snow the franchisees into believing that all is OK while you rape and pillage their future livelihoods too!
Except that if you are a franchisee and you chose bankruptcy for protection, you lose everything (Section 13, xii in the franchise agreement)! So what’s good for the vendor who is feeding kickbacks to Mr. Muzzillo is death to the franchisee who is giving nearly 25% of its net worth to a fat lazy schmuck who sues his ex-wife to get out of child support when he’s making 38K a month and she is a homemaker! Can you spell D-O-U-B-L-E S-T-A-N-D-A-R-D Greg?
Update: For all of those who don’t know it, Mr. Muzzillo gets it both ways. He takes kickbacks from every vendor that sells to any franchisee in his system. If you’re a franchisee, he’ll twist your arm and make you buy from a “Proforma PLP (preferred limited partner)” because there’s a 2% kickback from the heavy volume PLPs (BIC, Norwood, Vantage, SanMar) and more for low volume PLPs who spend their time schmoozing Greg and Vera and Brian. You would think that franchisees would have more clout since they are losing over 10% in royalty fees as compared to the PLPs. But oh contrare! The franchisees are nothing but marks and only those in the “Million Dollar Club” are given any attention (and very little at that). They are in fact the angriest! You see, if they do 1 million in business at a net profit of 35% (highest average of all franchisees), they would receive $350,000. Yet they end up paying Greg and Vera a whopping sum of $100,000 (28.5% of their net profit for absolutely nothing)! (If one only makes 25% net profit on 1 million, then Greg and Vera would receive 40% of the franchisee’s net profit!)
You see Greg and Vera don’t know an effing thing about selling print, promotions or apparel (that’s how Greg got in the business, but he hasn’t been in the trenches for over 25 years. He was actually an accountant by trade and Vera is an investment banker.) They are in the business to sell more franchises to more unsuspecting marks and they aren’t very good at that! Franchise counts are not measurable as they are simply the word of Greg and Vera. Franchise discontent continues to grow year after year (especially with those who are successful in spite of Greg and Vera). As one makes more and more profits, Greg and Vera get more and more and more for less and less and less. What do they do with all of the marketing monies, you ask? They spend the royalty dollars marketing Proforma to prospective franchisees and mostly for their personal PR to prop up their personal image. If you want marketing services for your specific franchise, that’s extra and you either have to do it yourself out of your own pocket or you can buy those services from Greg and Vera, (but that will be extra).
Bloody
Bloody Franchise 